Transition phenomena affecting the shape of pulses observed during individual cell flow through micropores

An analytical model is proposed to study the variation of the current flowing through a micropore when a red blood cell (modelled as an insulating sphere) approaches the pore, in order to examine the rise and decrease parts of the current pulse obtained in Coulter-principle deformability measurements. A moment-method procedure is used to solve the problem for the electric current values, with special care devoted to avoiding singularities and ensuring fast convergence of the expressions for the final matrix elements. Numerical results are presented, which appear to imply that a smaller estimate than the total pulse length is appropriate for the cell transit time.